Spiritual Forum. Org

Many of us believe in karma, the law of cause and effect, usually related to the negative actions that one makes, this is accurate, also there are some that do not believe in other lives, they believe that we only have one life and that is it, so they feel we have karma for this life only... others believe in reincarnation so they believe that karma is dragged from one life to another, this is a common belief in India and many other places, they actually believe that if they are poor, if they are sick, that it is a past life karma that they have to pay, and they do not want to stop their suffering because they feel they are going to interrupt the paying of their karma... So is this true?

Not for me, I read in the best book of all "Wisdom of the Heart" by Flora Rocha, by the way if you do not have it you are missing the best book you can have with a deep interesting revealing information, she says that we only pay karma from our current life, we pay all our debts in this life, would it be fair to pay for something that we do not even remember, from a life and a personality that we do not even know how it developed? Of course not, at least not from my perspective, she explains which and how are the exceptions to this, only with very few cases, she also explains how wrong the theory that when someone is born with a physical discapacity it is not because of karma, and she explains in her book why is this... well I can write a whole lot more but well if you are interested in these kind of topics I recommend the book "Wisdom of the Heart" by Flora Rocha, my favorite writer by the way, I know it is easy to infer:)

Thanx for your time...

i think this idea of "karmic" debt (whether it is believed to be accrued or pay-as-you-go) has to be looked at further.

firstly one has to look at what karma is, in a spiritual sense - as opposed to what it is in a physical sense. because people seem to get them mixed together. firstly in the physical sense it can be look at as the ongoing consequences of action (or inaction, which is still a choice made and acted upon).

spiritual karma is not physical, neither is our souls (or whatever it is that you call the part of us which continues when the mortal life is done). therefore physical terms and definitions become both useless and confusing.

if one assumes that the soul grows and matures over it's many lifetimes - as one sees in nature with all living things - and the soul finds itself in a new and different form each life then it is clearly not the name, personal life experiences or physical attributes which are repeated. so why would anything such as wounds, physical disabilities or misfortune repeat? when it comes to karma in the spiritual sense, we must do away with any physical references.

so what is karma in the spiritual sense?

firstly we must place this firmly in the cycle of lives where it belongs - BETWEEN LIVES. not before, not after, not during but BETWEEN LIVES. and linked with karma, regardless of whether a person is a christian and only believes in one life, or a buddhist practicioner who believes in a cycle of lives, is judgement. judgement of the soul (and for the sake of clarity, by 'soul' i mean the part which continues after the mortal life is done). christians believe their souls are judged by some god, buddhists by their own selves. i tend to agree with buddhists on this point. our souls judge themselves.

but what do our souls judge themselves on? and what are the consequences of such judgement. if we accept that all living things have souls then judgement must be very broad indeed. for what can a sparrow or a lion do that it's soul would judge it for? we who call ourselves 'sentient life' are capable of 'good' and 'bad' to any degree. but animals, plants and fish, even insects and bacteria, are not. and given that in our broad span of lives, and that the proportion of life which might be considered 'sentient' is minuscule it can be said to be certain that nobody can claim that their souls never have been, and never will be, a non-sentient life.

and by reason this must be so. firstly, because to counter that a human soul is always a human soul and a rose soul is always a rose in it's lives callously denies the 99.99 percent recurring souls in the universe are capable of growing and experiencing life. that to me seems highly illogical. not only that but because of the sheer variety of life in the universe, to claim that all the universe's lessons can be learned in one life, or one form of life, seems to me to be foolish to believe as well.

so whatever the soul judges itself on, whatever determines how the soul grows and matures, all that can be understood in nature as to be reasonable has to be considered in any conclusion as to what you want to believe.

any religion which uses the fear of 'sin' to motivate it's followers uses their version of karma, by claiming that god will punish them for wrong doings. these use karma as a control mechanism. this includes just about any creator/god based religion under the sun.

the same with any religion which uses the claim that our lives are predetermined in some way before birth, which is basically a blame game (bad things happen because that is a person's 'karma', and they deserve it type attitude). again this is a control mechanism, particularly amongst societies which have a slave caste. again it's about social control. ascensionism is an example of this one, although they 'reword' the message fairly regularly. some sects claim it is necessary, even inevitable, for the soul to suffer in each mortal life in order to evolve spiritually, some stick to the old argument that suffering is karmic punishment for past life misdeeds.